AWS Config is AWS's native tool for tracking resource configurations and enforcing compliance rules. It's tightly integrated into the AWS ecosystem and helps teams monitor resource changes and stay aligned with best practices—within AWS.
However, it stops short at showing you the full picture: it doesn't provide visibility into cost, cross-account inventory, or multi-cloud environments.
CloudQuery, by contrast, is a fully managed cloud governance platform that aggregates data from AWS, Azure, GCP, and SaaS services into a queryable inventory. It's built not just for security and compliance, but for platform teams that need to understand how infrastructure is configured and how much it's costing—across clouds.
What is CloudQuery?
CloudQuery is a complete cloud governance solution enabling smarter cloud audits, better cloud asset inventories, and more responsive targeted security monitoring. It is an open-source core platform that companies use to power their cloud asset inventories, security compliance, cloud cost management solutions, or solve any other data movement problem.
CloudQuery offers a growing list of supported Source and Destination integrations, making getting started easy. If you need to connect to a data source or destination.
What is AWS Config?
AWS Config is a configuration management system by AWS that helps organizations build and maintain a holistic view of their AWS resources. This view allows businesses to monitor all their AWS resources and ensure that their setup remains robust and secure in compliance with their legal obligations.
AWS Config helps uphold this by regularly recording and maintaining the timeline of changes in your AWS resource configurations. Cloud architects can use this information to track resource dependencies and changes over time. Once you have detailed insights into your AWS resources and their configuration, you can focus on identifying and mitigating potential risks while complying with the industry standards and policies.
At a glance
AWS Config operates in real time: it watches for resource changes in your AWS environment and triggers rule evaluations accordingly. It integrates well with Systems Manager for remediation, and with CloudTrail and Security Hub for deeper insights—but only within AWS.
CloudQuery syncs cloud configuration data from AWS and other providers into a normalized, always-up-to-date inventory. You can query it using SQL, explore costs, and build policies using familiar data tools.
Where AWS Config is a real-time rule checker, CloudQuery is a platform for querying, reporting, and understanding your entire cloud footprint—including costs.
Comprehensive Cloud governance
While AWS Config handles AWS-specific compliance well, it doesn't address the broader business challenges of cloud governance:
Risk Reduction: Without visibility across clouds, you can't identify configuration drift or security gaps in your multi-cloud estate.
Operational Efficiency: Separate tools for each cloud provider create data silos and waste engineering time.
Cost Optimization: You can't optimize what you can't see or measure. CloudQuery connects configuration with cost data to identify savings opportunities.
Compliance Readiness: As regulations evolve, having a unified source of truth for cloud assets becomes essential for audit preparation.
Verdict
If you're fully on AWS and need built-in compliance and remediation, AWS Config is a reliable, event-driven choice.
If you need to understand your infrastructure across clouds, expose cost and usage data, and build workflows around governance and FinOps, then CloudQuery gives you the broader visibility and flexibility needed to govern modern environments.
Take the next step beyond AWS-only monitoring
Many of our customers started with AWS Config before realizing they needed a unified governance platform that could handle their evolving multi-cloud reality.
The best way to understand how CloudQuery transforms cloud visibility is to see it in action with your own environment. Our team will walk you through a personalized demo tailored to your specific use cases, compliance requirements, and multi-cloud setup.
Let's talk about how CloudQuery can complement your existing tools while providing the cross-cloud visibility you've been missing. Schedule your personalized demo today
Want to explore more? Check out our documentation or join the CloudQuery community to connect with other users and experts.
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